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DOSBox 0.65 stutters under Windows

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First post, by Anamon

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Hello

I encountered a problem when trying to use DOSBox today, for the first time on my new system. Whenever I fire up the application, it runs fine for about 20 seconds, and then it starts to stutter, meaning that about every 2 seconds, the program freezes for about 1 second, and then continues running. It doesn't affect any other programs running on Windows, but it makes using DOSBox impossible.

I have been using DOSBox 0.65 on this hardware for a while now, only the software installation is new. I use Windows XP Pro with SP-2, I have no Desktop Enhancements and at the moment not even any Anti-Virus installed. The problem occurs also when running DOSBox right after booting Windows up, and doing absolutely nothing in DOSBox, i.e. just running it, waiting, and after 20 seconds you can see the cursor in the command line starting to stutter.

I use the standard, unchanged config file, although I tried some different settings for output and cycles, nothing helped. DOSBox.exe takes up about 100 MB of RAM after startup, and takes only about 5% CPU usage, even in the middle of a stutter.

Where do I have to look for this problem?

Thanks in advance
Daniel

Reply 2 of 4, by Anamon

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I used the standard dosbox.conf that comes with the official download, and tried different settings for output, cycles, core and some other options, but none of the changes affected the problem. None of the output settings prevents it from happening, and neither 'auto' cycles nor any of the different cycle values I tried (everything from 500 to 40000) seem to help. It baffles me because the same computer, even with about the same software installation, usually had no problems with the standard dosbox.conf.

I discovered that whenever a stutter happens, the screen flickers a little (almost not visible), and sometimes, I can hear a "zip" like the one I hear right after starting up DOSBox. When I set cycles to 'auto', I haven't ever noticed any sound distortion, but the stuttering still happens.

I have tried installing the CVS build now, and it doesn't seem to show the problem. I have tried it the other way round, changin options to recreate the stuttering, without any success either. So the problem doesn't really bug me anymore as I just stick with the CVS build now, but I'm still curious about what could cause a problem like the one I encountered...

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